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Poem Portal #3: Author’s Lament

I have been a big fan of musicals since I was a little girl. As a singer myself, and a despiser of mundane reality, I found the idea of someone bursting into song in the middle of a street and having everyone around them start singing and dancing hugely appealing. My favourite thing about going on trips with my choir was that life really could be like this to a degree. We sang in restaurants and airports. I could start singing something as we walked down the street, and hear the harmonies swell up spontaneously around me.

That being said, there were certain songs in the most classic Broadway musicals that gave me a sense of disconnect. I discovered Guys and Dolls as a teenager and, being a modern woman, couldn’t for the life of me understand why Adelaide was clinging on to an engagement that seemed to be dragging out indefinitely. “Adelaide’s Lament” is a wonderful song for the heartsick little lady been done wrong by a gambler. I, however, felt I had better reasons to catch an emotionally stimulated illness. So I filked “Adelaide’s Lament” into “Author’s Lament”. Dofeel free to sing out loud if you know the tune;-)

The average unpublished author

Living to entertain

Due to that long frustration will react

With tense and psychotic symptoms

Difficult to restrain

Affecting the brain, blood and the cognitive tract

In other words, just from waiting around for one little “yes” to transmit